History & The Arts
Approaching prose fiction
...motivation to keep on reading. The third extract, like the opening of Rushdie's novel, introduces us to what will be for many of us an unfamiliar setting, but perhaps also intrigues us in another way, with its deliberate vagueness about time – ‘Lifetimes ago’ – and the juxtaposition of unlikely symbols, a banyan tree and a satellite dish. The astrologer's prophecy...